


Undercurrent

by oceansinmychest



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Bathtubs, Character Study, Drinking, Gen, Light Angst, Musings of Past Relationships, Nudity, One Shot, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Purple Prose, Reflection, Repetition, Some references to Janeway/Seven, musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest
Summary: Captain Kathryn Janeway takes a bath. Shucked from the shell of her uniform, Janeway finds herself skinned alive. Alone, she ruminates. Alone, she overthinks.(As a forewarning: there's hints of J/7 pining, but isn't the main focus of the story.)
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway/Seven of Nine
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Undercurrent

**Author's Note:**

> So, I found myself inspired by listening to Joji’s “Dancing in the Dark” reverbed and slowed down mixes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7rUH0rCKBQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIaccjZGlzc.
> 
> There are very brief mentions of Janeway's relationships within this fic and some pining over Seven here and there. I imagine she tends to reflect and ruminate quite often, alone in her quarters. Anyways, enjoy. Be safe and be well.

After a fourteen-hour stint on the bridge, Captain Kathryn Janeway – a Goldenbird trying to fill Admiral E. Janeway’s shoes – enters her private quarters. Her soles ache from those insufferable four-inch heels as she drags herself across spacious hallowed ground. She kicks off the black shoes containing a scuff here and there; no need to recycle and replicate that which is meant to endure.

Staggering along, her hand flies to her throbbing back, her spine wearied by worlds. She arches in an attempt to crack her back. The reverberating pop does little to alleviate her tension. Janeway instructs the computer to set the lights to sixty percent capacity. Her palm spans across her forehead, thumb and forefinger pinching pulsating temples.

As some small mercy, Kathryn Janeway denies herself the repetition of an arctic ice bath and the stale, off-programed brew of a black coffee. At approximately 2230 hours, she sets a bath with a sprinkling of Epsom salt, a splash of herbal oil, and the temperature damn near scalding. Tonight, she craves something a little stronger than a glass of synthehol or wine. In the Captain’s quaint quarters, she replicates Macallan, year fifteen. A double. Neat.

This small comfort is bound to disintegrate. Supplies can - and **will** \- run scarce. What the replicator makes, no matter the finest crew and engineer (looking at you, B’Elanna), this cannot last.

The aroma of her drink lowers her rigid shoulders. She swirls the glass, watches the amber liquid dance before that first, sacred sip. She catches a whiff of vanilla and a woody, almost smoky scent. Spice and syrupy sweetness linger on the bed of her tongue. The burn follows, ventures straight down to her gullet to scrape away at her empty stomach.

All she’s missing is the feel of a cigarette haphazardly dangling between her fingers as the embers snake closer towards her fingers before the treasured thrill of her exhale. She hasn’t had a smoke, a proper one (the lethal Holodeck stint as Katrine fighting the Hirogen _doesn't_ count), since after her academy days. Just one celebratory cigar for every lost cause. There’s something about the way tendrils of smoke embrace your face. Lovingly caress your cheeks before disappearing without a trace, lost to the ether.

Glass in her firm grip, she drags her corpse (her worn, weathered body) to the washroom. This is the Kathryn that the crew cannot afford to see. So, she doesn’t show them. Doesn’t let them into her orbit.

Shucked from the shell of her uniform, Janeway finds herself skinned alive. Vulnerable and bare, she avoids the mirror in her bathroom. Doesn’t want to look at herself or make the confrontation she’ll have with the _Admiral_ Janeway in the future. Half-tempted to throw her jacket onto the floor, she refrains. As a traditionalist and having been reared by Starfleet’s philosophy, she finds that the neglect would slander her father’s name. 

At the wrong angle in artificial, fluorescent lighting (how unkind the light can be), she spies a walking, thinking corpse. How is that _any_ different from the Borg?

As she sets her crystal chalice on the side of the tub, she folds her uniform with care. Doesn’t matter that the articles will be replicated, recycled for tomorrow’s fresh start.

Tired is an understatement. Lightly, she pushes an index finger into the circles looming underneath her cobalt eyes. Those shadows rival bruising, black and blue to enhance the grey to her irises. Her body harbors so many haunts. 

Overly self-critical, her fingers graze the indentation below the curvature of her hip. Her body is far from a living marvel, but a museum of a life well lived and survived: stretchmarks, scars, freckles, the gentle slope of skin and muscle and stored fat for a woman of a certain age. Her mind flits to Seven: beautiful and mechanical, does oil ooze and flow through those veins?

No, Kathryn supposes not.

When she raises a leg, the muscle of her thigh flexes from the movement. She checks the temperature with a toe before slipping her foot in. It burns just fine. Her old friend, Mr. Tuvok, would warn her that such displays of recklessness are illogical and a definitive cause for concern.

With a contemptuous snort, she shakes her head. Plunging into the water, relaxation a ruse when dangerous lurks within the infinitude of space, she tries her best to recline. To unfurl her compact, petite form. As she stretches, some part or another offers a volatile crack in retaliation. Lost in thought, her knuckles graze her proud jawline.

_I can get them home, I can._

What a convincing mantra that’s become.

Elbow on the edge, akin to her life teetering on a hazardous ledge, sore muscles scream for a modicum of relief. Silky, filmy suds trace the contours of her contorted body. When she slouches forward, her stomach sags – rolls of flesh hidden by ramrod posture on the bridge and the constraints of her uniform. Command restrains her as much as she chooses to embrace the tenets of control and order.

The absurd notion that she commands a ghost ship has crossed her mind. Kathryn catches her breath, but not her death. Not yet.

So, she sips her scotch. Tries not to down it in three, steady gulps or one go. That would be a pretty waste.

Human nature lingers on the hurt. It all weighs heavily on her: all the gambles taken, bets wagered, on every first counter and improvisation made to the ship. Even her stiff back tenses. Her never-quiet mind wanders.

Janeway thinks of ripple effects. Of butterflies. Of chaos theory. How every decision, every choice, seems to matter. Once home, if ever a possibility, she has to rationalize (re: defend) those actions. A modern witch trial for the Federation to flaunt their knowledge, their power.

With the intensity of a baroque painting, she glowers at the wall across from her. Flexed knuckles sink into the nape of her neck. Her brow furrows. She rotates though it’s a poor attempt to fix the kink there. Creases riddle her neck like a piece of jewelry, but hint towards the starting formation of jowls.

Pressure tenses her up. Swollen, aching joints seek relief. Her elastic skin has. withstood a great deal. How now her pulse leaps beneath the rubbery layer of flesh. She rolls her taut, tense shoulders. Another pop sounds off, a swift crack that provides temporary alleviation. Muscle, tissue, and flesh enshroud her weary bones. Frigidness locks her fingers into place. 

Captain Janeway fluctuates between the confirmation and denial of being stranded in the Delta Quadrant. There is such a thing as hopeless hope. 

Responsibility outweighs her need for human comfort, for an intimate connection. She may as well be wed to the uniform, to the pips, to her ship. Voyager swerves as much as her tumultuous life.

She drains her scotch dry. The cup chimes as she sets it down. Glass empty, she yearns for more (always more) without acting. Should’ve replicated herself two, but hedonism doesn’t suit her.

Abruptly, she sits upright and ignores the twinge to her spine. She swallows guilt and neglects forgiveness. Scrubs her skin raw with the puffy, spherical, cream-colored loofa. Then, her nails. How little and yet how much flesh can withstand; that’s the fine paradox pertinent to the plasticity of skin, of being dreadfully human. A hypospray, taken at dawn, will conceal how she scrubs her skin raw, red, pink in the healing aftermath. 

Freckles (the color of coffee stains on paper, a messy motley) splatter across her chest, her shoulders, a light coating down her arms. Soapy bubbles taint that which was once clear.

With a hand masking her face, she laughs soundlessly. A hoarse, choking sound.

Grasping for straws at the chain of command, she feels the dwelling ache of loneliness course through her pulsing veins. Runs her ragged. 

Chakotay, Mark, Michael Sullivan: none of them worked out. Maybe Seven is the one responsible for resuscitate her, she muses wryly. She looks at Seven as if she’ll die of thirst in the middle of an uninhabitable planet.

And what if she _had_ surrendered to New Earth? A Captain acts above their needs, desires, and wants. Janeway will let her go just as she let Chakotay go. 

Maybe she’s become a cynic. The life of her will wither against time, age as hostile as some of the species she’s encountered.

 _Jesus wept,_ she thinks to herself amidst these rapid, plaguing thoughts and nagging lamentations.

Were she not the Captain responsible for the livelihood, the longevity of her crew, she could be Kathryn. She could show Seven her hopes and dreams and fears. How cool, how cruel, how strict she tries to be. Downright mercurial, no reason nor rhyme justifies the irrationality of her mind. Assimilation would squander her hopes, her fears, all those woes and ails that reinforce the pretty Starfleet title.

Trying to clear her head, she dives beneath the surface. Enveloped in a watery tomb, the sound reminds her of the blood rushing to her ears on the day Daddy died. To the bottom of the shallow tub, her body sinks like a stone. Sailing the sea wouldn’t be any easier. Can’t keep her head underwater forever despite the oppressive curtain that looms over Kathryn. Her anxieties and worries make for one hell of a Sword of Damocles.

Caught in a vacuum, a centrifuge, there’s a ringing in her ears that she can’t shake. With her head swimming in anti-matter, her eyes shine from the tears that never come, as if the water takes that from her too. How the rush singes her nostrils like chlorine, artificial chemicals that eat away at her.

Perhaps Seven of Nine was correct to speculate, along with post-structuralist thought, that the self is fiction. A fable sold to the malleable human mind.

The burn sears her lungs, her ribs, her bleeding heart. So much for Starfleet reg.

Cocooned without the anticipation of a metamorphosis, her hair infiltrates the water like a small stream of blood or a red river interrupting murky waters. She times how long she can hold her breath underwater. Once, Phoebe and Kathryn had done so for sport, coming up, spluttering before a giddy bout of laughter rocked them both to the core.

In the vague resemblance of drowning, adrenaline ricochets her upright. Maybe she’s become more automaton than woman, a crude replica of the insidious Borg. Now, that causes another laugh to bubble up from the pit of her belly.

When she re-emerges, her hair sticks to her skull, grayer in her roots than she cares to admit. Her hands grip the ledge and although a tad begrudgingly, she pulls herself out. Resurrected, she lifts herself out of the water gone, hands on the brim and braced for lift off. Time and time again, she’ll rise above.

Upon rising above the water’s edge, one eye wells shut. The threat of drowning brings her back like Lady Lazarus. The veil of her hair, now sodden, plasters to her scalp and temples akin to blood crusted over. The flush to her cheeks reminds her of just how alive she truly is.

Although the magnitude of grief chills her body, her lust for life warms her. Splayed fingers rest beneath her pronounced collarbone, covering the motley of freckles that decorate her skin like a celestial constellation. Plenty shakes her. It takes far more to break her.

“Hell,” she murmurs aloud, her fingertips lifting to sweep above her brow line.

Overthinking threatens to usurp her. Kathryn drags her hands over her worn, haggard face that has seen too many horrors. How exhausting it is to keep yourself together all the damn time. Oh, her bones always ache these days. In her lamentations and reflections, consider this a case of affliction.

The residue of mascara sticks to the creases, the lines, the wrinkles that speak to her gravitational pull to the earth. Albeit begrudgingly, she eases herself out of the tub, not quite born anew, but refreshed. It’s as good as it’s going to get.

Little Goldenbird recalls her father - the Admiral - and his favorite profanity, a mirror and a foil to her own sacred, private tradition: _Jesus wept._

Reaching for a towel hanging off the rack, Janeway dries herself off. A little too rough as a means of self-flagellation, a little penance goes a long way. Belts the cloth around her waist, below her breasts, as she does in isolation. Drains the water in one go. Drenched, her hair plasters to the nape of her neck. Slick rivulets venture down her spine in silent, vicious retaliation. 

This time, she looks at herself in the mirror. A familiar stranger, or a ghost (the shadow of herself), looks back. She has her father’s eyes, her mother’s mouth, her sister’s tenacity. She scrutinizes herself a little harder before walking in reverse to retire for the evening.

Kathryn backs away from the looking glass. Tomorrow, the crew will see their Captain alive and alert, coffee in hand, her regrets buried beneath the uniform.

**Author's Note:**

> Both “Jesus wept” and “Goldenbird” are repeated intentionally, as if all things come full circle. A little homage to social cycle theory.


End file.
